


Writercon 2006 Topics

by yourlibrarian



Category: Angel: the Series, Buffy the Vampire Slayer (TV)
Genre: Conventions, Gen, Nonfiction, Transcribed, Writing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-23
Updated: 2020-03-23
Packaged: 2021-02-28 17:47:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,090
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23271223
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yourlibrarian/pseuds/yourlibrarian
Summary: After having attended Writercon in July 2006, I posted a few details of one panel and posted a question on my blog to extend the discussion.
Collections: March Meta Matters Challenge





	Writercon 2006 Topics

I took some notes on The Ins and Outs of Fandom panel as follows:

**1) What is a fan?**

Great story from nikitangel that a TV executive who came to speak to her academic program mentioned that networks categorize viewers in 3 tiers, the top one being the "loyal viewer." What are the qualifications for loyalty? Viewing the program twice a month! I wonder how that category came about -- did it come from viewers themselves? Do such viewers think of themselves as loyal viewers? Or was that just from the network researchers who discovered that people view shows so irregularly that seeing only 50% of the show put them in the top tier of viewers? It made me wonder how rarely did people in the bottom tier even watch TV?

Someone, somewhere had a great story about talking with an acquaintance who claimed to be one of Bon Jovi's #1 fans. When asked how many shows he had seen, the guy responded he had never been to a concert. He considered that to be over the top.

Hmmmm.

The panel, at least, had some more stringent requirements. It was suggested that participation was important, but a fan should be defined by how they process the material, which could be done in isolation. 

That same TV executive had also shared that when focus groups were brought in to give opinions on plots, it was often the lowest rated plots that the producers then decided to implement. That was because these storylines were expected to stir debate and thus interest among viewers. Hmmm.

**2) How has the Internet changed fandom?**

Cons were discussed as a place where originally people went to meet other people, to get that sense of connection. Now people go to cons to have a different level of interaction with people they already know. There was also discussion about the Internet breaking down demographic barriers and allowing people to open up their ideas about others, to look at other people differently, since it could turn out that totally unexpected people were fellow fans. With the Internet you could find someone to share an interest with, no matter what it was. 

On the other hand there can be a downside to this variety of choices such as a need for popularity. There was also a brief discussion about the use of the friends-lock feature on LJ and how it can be used to lock out offline friends and family from stuff too personal to share.

**3) Who owns the text?**

There was some interesting stuff about the schism in Dr. Who fandom among old timers and fans of the new series, which also tends to break down along gender lines. This moved the panel to a discussion about participation in the fandoms by creators, noting that the staff of the new Who were fans themselves and well aware of fandom areas and discussion. At the end, this circled back to the question of whether or not creators could actually remain fans, and whether or not there was a consumerist exchange among fans and creators in areas where fandom was employed for marketing purposes. The varying interpretations within fandoms can throw into question what counts as a "fact," since discussions can reveal varying insight into things some might have considered to be a canonical certainty. 

**4) Where do fans go?**

There was some reference to Whedonverse fandoms dying, despite new people joining, because there were movements of people to new fandoms. There were reasons offered why fans picked future fandoms, one being a love of dialog (panel member Rhonda Wilcox offered that those online were probably very verbal people to start with so that this made a lot of sense) as well as sci fi/fantasy stories which offered a lot of leeway for play in their universes. Stories with good arcs, deep characterization and complexity of writing were also appreciated. The wish to move to new fandoms was posed as a desire for more information to analyze and debate, as well as an active community to belong to. However it was noted it might be difficult to feel a sense of community if one was relating to characters and storylines that were generally unpopular within the fandom as a whole. Online it can be difficult to know where the shared connection actually lies. There was also a suggestion that people had been changed by the Whedonverse, becoming unable to be casual TV viewers. 

**5) Do men and women do fandom differently?**

What's the difference between a fanboy and a fangirl? One of the guys at the con volunteered that there wasn't as much as was being suggested, that there are men writing fan fiction, probably more than we think.

**Are archives losing their importance to the Whedonverse fandom?**

This last question prompted me to run a poll at my account, which asked the following. There were very few responses to the poll so I've included the most common reply:

Do you use fanfic archives? (Multi-author sites, not just a personal fic webpage)  
Yes, as part of my fic reading 

If you write fic, where do you archive your work?  
On LJ, my webpage, and archives 

If you read fic at archive sites, what are some of the reasons?  
I like browsing through a variety of stuff  
I can find exactly what I'm looking for more easily 

Do you think archives are losing their importance for the Whedonverse?  
Maybe some are, but others will always be around

Some comments that were left included the following observations about archives:

* For people who came late to fandom, archives were vital initially  
* It allows you to find classic authors or people who never used LJ  
* They may not be a place to find recent writing in archives  
* Archives might be a less fragile place to store fanfiction compared to blogging or other multipurpose sites due to communities splintering  
* Archives could allow you to find particular types of stories more easily  
* Good for readers who are lazy or short of time, because archives put together good quality reading  
* Archive use is a way of showing appreciation to those who put in that kind of work  
* A lot of fanfic writers have begun to use bookmarking or specific accounts to house their fiction rather than specific websites or their own archives. This is because website hosting is expensive and posting to LJ is easy.  
* Going to an archive is only about the fic; whereas LJ is more to get to know the writer behind the fic


End file.
